Verdict and Conclusion
First of all, let me start by saying I’m pretty happy with the overall performance of the WD Blue 3D NAND SSD. It produced some decent scores in all of our benchmarks. In our tests, we managed to get a maximum read speed of around 562.7 MB/sec and write speed of up to 520 MB/sec. This is all thanks to the super fast Marvell 88SS1074 controller inside.
As storage drive, it’s perfect. It’s fast, comes in a small footprint, and you get up to 1TB capacity (approximately 930GB after formatting). As a boot drive, loading Windows takes around 30 seconds and performs pretty well, although the M.2 NVMe SSD (PCIE Gen.3) like the Patriot Hellfire would be faster. As with most 2.5″ SSDs, the interface used is SATA3, so you’re bound by its speed limitations with a maximum theoretical output of 6.0GB/sec (real-life is around 4-5GB/sec). Still having said that, I ain’t complaining especially when you get 1TB storage capacity. And given a choice, I’ll choose a larger 1TB 3D NAND SSD over a lower capacity M.2 PCIE Gen.3 any day!
The WD Blue 3D NAND SSD comes in several flavors from lowest capacity of 250GB all the way up to the larger capacity of 2TB. This is great news for any video editors and content creators who wants to edit in their files real-time, without having to rely on a slower NAS device. Imagine putting 4 or more these in a RAID configuration … OMG!
So, the real question all of you are probably asking … is there a REAL performance difference between standard 2D NAND and 3D NAND. Well to be honest, the answer is no. 3D NAND was never about increasing performance. It was developed to address the capacity limitation of standard 2D NAND, by stacking the storage cells on top of each other. This means it can offer the potential for higher capacity in a smaller physical space than 2D NAND.
Buy the Western Digital BLUE 1TB
Pros:
- 1TB capacity
- 3D NAND Technology
- Very good performance
- Fast Marvell 88SS1074 controller
Cons:
- Expensive – Due to volatile memory prices
Final Thoughts
The Western Digital BLUE 1TB
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